Sardines and Ice Cream
by Nameless Boast
Summary: A startling revelation from Vegeta about Saiyan physiology leaves Goten reeling. Now Trunks is stuck trying to convince his boyfriend that he isn't pregnant. For Urikaa. *Truten, Yaoi*


Author's Note: The idea behind this fic was graciously bequeathed to me by Urikaa. She picked up on a throwaway line from "Liquor, Lingerie, and Leather-Bound Musings" about Trunks impregnating Goten's non-existent womb, and just ran with it. I was inspired by her comments, and this piece of crack was the result. Hope you all enjoy!

**Sardines and Ice Cream**

There were many, many things that Trunks liked about being Goten's boyfriend. First and foremost, he didn't have to hide _anything_ from the kid. He didn't have to lie about his heritage or his superpowers, because Goten shared those same things. In a similar vein, Trunks loved that Goten's idea of a good date involved sparring for a few hours, showering (possibly together if Trunks could talk him into it), and watching a gory movie over a couple of pizzas. Followed, of course, by lots of sex.

Oh, the sex. At the risk of sounding like a single-minded pervert, Trunks had to say that the sex was easily the best part of their relationship. First, dating another half-Saiyan meant that he didn't have to worry about inadvertently hurting the other boy. But more than that, the sex was just _spectacular_. Of course, a large part of that could be chalked up to the fact that they were hormonal teenagers, aged seventeen and sixteen respectively, meaning that they had hyperactive sex drives to begin with. Trunks wondered how much of it could be chalked up to his Saiyan physiology, and how much was just good old-fashioned human libido.

Yes, Trunks had decided, dating Goten was in every conceivable way superior to dating a girl. So, on this lovely summer afternoon, Trunks was not out buying flowers or perfume or chocolates for his significant other. Instead, he and said significant other were pounding the hell out of each other in the newly-repaired Gravity Room. It was only after four hours and a couple of cracked ribs that they finally called it a day. Trunks shut down the gravity generators, and the two teenagers quickly went straight to any proper Saiyan's favorite part of the house—the kitchen.

Little did Trunks know at the time that, on that otherwise pleasant summer afternoon, in that otherwise pleasant kitchen, things were about to go horribly, horribly wrong.

"Man," Goten said as he rifled through the refrigerator. "I've been craving sweet and salty all week."

"Yeah?" Trunks asked as he began making them a couple of sandwiches. It was late in the afternoon and dinner would be in a couple of hours, so he figured that he would keep their snack small. Fifteen layers each of meat and cheese should be appropriate.

"Uh huh," Goten said, his head still shoved halfway into the large fridge. "I must have gone through twelve bags of chocolate covered pretzels."

"That's kinda weird, Goten."

"That was my thought." Goten shut the door of the fridge. "Got any ice cream?"

"Yeah," Trunks nodded, "in the freezer." Goten grinned as he pulled out a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream and a spoon. He sat down with Trunks and began eating straight out of the carton, as Trunks dove face first into one of the sandwiches.

"Damn," Goten said as he licked the back of the spoon. "You know what I just got struck with a craving for?"

"What?" Trunks said around a mouthful of turkey and cheese.

"Sardines!"

Trunks swallowed the large bite in his mouth and stared at Goten for a few moments. "...With ice cream."

"Yes."

"That's disgusting."

"I know!" Goten said, nodding vigorously as he got up to raid the pantry. "Like I said, I've been having weird cravings all week."

"Wow," Trunks said with a laugh, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were pregnant." He couldn't help recalling the emotional trainwreck his mother had been when she was pregnant with Bra. Between Bulma's raging hormones and Vegeta's raging sympathy hormones, Trunks had honestly wondered if he would make it through the nine months intact. The sheer number of times Trunks had been sent out at three in the morning to retrieve pickles—not because his mother had actually wanted to _eat_ the pickles, that is, but because she wanted to drink the pickle juice right out of the jar—meant that he still couldn't look at that particular aisle in the grocery store without getting a bit queasy.

"Ha-_ha_." Goten rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Trunks, but in case you haven't noticed, I don't have a womb."

As fate would have it, that was the precise moment that Vegeta decided to walk into the kitchen. Though he made eye contact with neither his son nor his son's best friend, he did address the younger demi-Saiyan's comment. "Yes you do."

"Wait," Goten said, freezing in place. "What?"

Vegeta shrugged as he grabbed a plastic container of leftover chicken from the fridge. "You have a womb. Both male and female Saiyans can bear children."

Trunks gaped at his father, dropping what remained of his sandwich back onto his plate. "Wait...does that mean...Saiyan males can get pregnant?"

"Yes, you idiot." Without another word, Vegeta left, chicken wings in hand.

Trunks swallowed loudly as he turned to face Goten. Goten stared at Trunks, suddenly looking very, very pale.

Before Trunks knew what was happening, a hyperventilating Goten was running out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, Trunks ran after him.

* * *

"Goten! What the hell are you doing!" Trunks pounded his fist against the door of the bathroom with increasing force. He could have easily broken it down, of course, but his mother would have been deeply annoyed. Besides, their usual carpenter was probably starting to find the holes he routinely found in the Capsule Corp ceilings and walls suspicious.

"I hate you!" Goten cried from inside the locked bathroom. "Now go away! I never want to see you again!"

Trunks pinched the bridge of his nose. He refrained from pointing out that this was _his_ house. "Goten!" he shouted, resuming his loud knocking. "Get out of there!"

"No! I'm never coming out!"

"Why the hell not?"

"I'm hiding away from the world while I lose my boyish figure!"

Screw the carpenter's suspicions. With one good yank, Trunks tore the door off its hinges. As he set the door down, he saw that Goten was leaning against the wall between the sink and the toilet, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his face in his arms.

"God damnit, Goten. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Goten looked up at Trunks, his large black eyes rimmed with red. "You knocked me up, you bastard!"

Trunks gripped his hair with such ferocity that he nearly tore his scalp right off his head. "Goten. You. Are. Not. Pregnant."

"Then why haven't I gotten my period?"

Trunks' jaw dropped. "You..." He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to get it to cooperate and form actual words. "You never had one to begin with, you moron!"

"Don't call me a moron!" Goten finally stood and grabbed a toothbrush from the counter, tossing it roughly at Trunks' head. "I may or may not be carrying _your child!_"

Trunks sighed. Goten was a sweet kid, really, but he did have a tendency to panic. He had to put a stop to this before the situation got out of control. "Okay," he said calmly, "what do I have to do to convince you that you aren't pregnant?"

* * *

"This is fucking ridiculous." Trunks let out a string of curses under his breath as he walked to the appropriate aisle of the drug store.

Of all the things he expected to do over his summer vacation, buying a pregnancy test for his boyfriend was _not_ among them.

He stared at the surprisingly large display, eyeing brand after brand of pregnancy test. The variety of tests available was startling—how many ways could there be to pee on a stick? After spending a few minutes reading several labels and numerous similar sets of instructions, Trunks just grabbed a few different boxes. He had no idea which test Goten would prefer, and he really didn't want to have to run back out on the same errand again.

Trunks dropped the randomly selected packages into his shopping basket and immediately began walking briskly to the front checkout line. In his distracted state, he managed to plow into an unfortunate young woman by the toothpaste aisle.

"Oof!" the girl huffed out as she fell to the tile floor. Trunks landed on his rear, dropping his basket and scattering the pregnancy tests. The girl rose to her knees and began replacing them in the basket. "Here, let me—Trunks! Hi!"

"Huh?" Trunks stood up to brush the dirt from the seat of his pants and finally looked at the teenage girl. He recognized her as one of his classmates, albeit one he hadn't seen since school had let out a few weeks ago. "Oh, hey Dara," he greeted, helping her up. "Sorry about that. I'm in a bit of a rush."

"Oh, it's no prob—" Dara cut herself off as she looked down at the small box in her hand. "Uh, Trunks? I, uh, hate to butt in, but..."

"Yeah?" Trunks asked, gathering his basket and the remaining pregnancy tests.

"Aren't you still dating that guy? Gorin or whatever?"

"Goten. And yes, I am."

Dara frowned, handing him the box in her hand. "Are you guys having relationship problems?"

"Yes," Trunks sighed. "My boyfriend thinks he's pregnant."

Dara raised an eyebrow at the other teenager. She clearly didn't buy his explanation. "Who is it? Is it Lida? I know Lida's liked you for a while."

Trunks gripped the bridge of his nose in a gesture of exasperation. "I'm not cheating on Goten, Dara. My boyfriend is just out of his mind."

"Uh huh. Sure, Trunks." She folded her arms and frowned at him. "I'll see you around some time." With that, she turned and stalked out of the store, forgetting her toothpaste and mouthwash.

Trunks paid for the tests and grumbled to himself the whole way home. Not only did his boyfriend think he was going to make medical history, but now rumors were going to go around that Trunks was a teenage philanderer. He didn't want to tempt fate, but as he arrived at his house and walked into the bathroom in which Goten was still seated, he truly wondered how this day could get any worse.

Until Goten got the result of the first pregnancy test.

Trunks gaped at the thin blue line that had appeared on the chemical strip. "No. Fucking. Way."

"Oh, no!" Goten wailed. He started to gasp as tears began streaming down his face. "I'm only sixteen! I'm too young to be a daddy!" Goten bitterly threw the pregnancy test into the trashcan. "And I'm _way_ too young to be a mommy!" He buried his face in his hands, sobbing loudly.

"Goten, Goten," Trunks said evenly, trying to calm his hysterical boyfriend. "It was probably a false positive. Come on, just take another pregnancy test, will you?" Goten tearfully nodded and pulled out another box.

Three tests and three equally sharp blue lines later, however, left Goten sobbing in the corner of the bathroom, and Trunks deeply, deeply confused.

Trunks frowned at the final pregnancy test, trying to gather his thoughts above the commotion of Goten's furious crying. "There has _got_ to be another explanation."

* * *

There were many, many things Trunks liked about being Goten's boyfriend. But, in the three days since Goten had started believing he was pregnant, all of those reasons went flying out the window.

Goten wouldn't spar, because he didn't want to risk injuring the fetus. Goten wouldn't eat pizza, because it contributed to his "morning sickness." Goten wouldn't watch gory movies, because he was afraid of somehow scarring the baby's fragile little mind in utero. When Trunks had pointed out that Goten didn't even _want_ to have a baby, Goten had started to cry. Very loudly. For an hour. Using one of Trunks' shirts as a handkerchief.

But that wasn't the worst part of this all. No, the most horrible part of this whole debacle was the fact that Goten _flatly refused to have sex_.

"Chibi!" Trunks cried out, horrified when Goten ordered him to stop talking off his pants. "Why the hell not!"

Goten folded his arms, scowling at his boyfriend. "Because the last time we had sex, you knocked me up."

Trunks tried to reason with the younger boy. "Goten, even if you _are_ pregnant—which I still maintain you aren't—it's not like I can get you pregnant again!"

"That's what we thought the first time around!" Goten shouted. "I'm not taking any chances."

"Okay, that's it." Trunks fell face first onto the bed, burying his head in his pillow. "I think you need to go."

"Oh, so you only want me for sex, is that it?" Tears were once again apparent in Goten's voice, but Trunks couldn't bring himself to care anymore.

"No, Goten." His voice was muffled by the pillow. "I just want you to leave." So, in a huff, leave Goten did.

Two hours later, Trunks found his sulking interrupted by a knock on his door. His face was still very much burrowed into his pillow when his mother opened the door.

"Sweetie, it's time for dinner." Bulma came inside the bedroom as she saw her son's apparently distressed state, joining him on the bed. "What's wrong, Trunks?"

Trunks sat up, facing his mother. He considered explaining the situation for a moment, then stopped. It simply wasn't worth getting into. "Nothing," he finally said. "I'm just in love with an idiot."

Before Bulma could answer, the two of them were interrupted by a loud crash and a louder boom from downstairs. Trunks immediately suspected that the noise had come from the gravity room. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard his father's voice boom from downstairs. "WOMAN!" Vegeta called. "The training robots need repairing!" The prince paused for a moment before speaking again. "And I think I busted another hole through the ceiling."

Bulma sighed, pressing the heel of her palm to her forehead. "You aren't the only one, Trunks. You aren't the only one."

* * *

This was it. This was the very last straw. The mood swings, the cravings, the psychosomatic nausea, even the refusal to have sex, those he could all take. But this, _this_ was where Trunks drew the line.

His boyfriend's antics had reached a whole new level of ridiculousness. Goten was camped out on Trunks' bed with a spool of pink yarn, two needles, and a book of crochet patters. Learning how to knit.

"Chibi," Trunks said, rubbing his temples. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Making a bootie!" Goten said, proudly picking up a poorly stitched patch of pink fabric. "What do you think?"

"I think it looks more like an elbow patch than a boot."

Predictably, Goten started to cry. Equally predictably, he chucked one of his knitting needles at Trunks' head, just barely missing knocking out his eye. "I'm pregnant with your baby! Can't you even _try_ to be nice to me?"

"Alright, that's _it!_" Trunks shot a small energy beam at the pink patch, incinerating it. "Goten, I'm going to drag you down to my mother's lab, x-ray you, and SHOW you that you aren't pregnant!" He then leaped onto the bed, quickly getting Goten into a tight headlock.

"Ack! No!" Goten shouted, struggling against Trunks' grip. "X-rays are bad for fetuses! We can't do it!" The fight went on for a few minutes before Goten, in a burst of supposedly hormone-fueled rage, managed to hurl Trunks against the wall. Trunks leapt at Goten again, knocking over a floor lamp while Goten ran around the room, trying to evade him.

It wasn't long before both Vegeta and Bulma were at Trunks' bedroom door, drawn upstairs by the sudden commotion. "What the hell is going on here?" Vegeta demanded.

Trunks answered without looking at his parents. "I'm trying to convince this fucking lunatic that he isn't fucking pregnant!"

"Trunks!" Goten exclaimed, sounding horrified. "That's no way to talk in front of the grandparents of your child!"

Trunks actually growled. "You aren't _having _a baby!"

"Yes I am!"

Bulma and Vegeta looked at one another for a few moments before addressing the boys. "Of course you aren't pregnant," Bulma said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Trunks turned to his parents, his attention no longer focused on his boyfriend. "What?"

"How do you know?" Goten asked, freezing in place.

"Saiyan men may have wombs, but a Saiyan man can only be impregnated by a Saiyan _woman_," Vegeta explained. "Even if the male is carrying the child, the creation of a zygote still requires a sperm and an egg. Saiyan women evolved the ability to transfer their eggs to men during sexual intercourse. My dimwit son can't get you pregnant any more than a human female."

Trunks' eyes widened. "Why didn't you explain this sooner?"

Vegeta shrugged. "You didn't ask."

Goten began scratching at the top of his head, now more confused than panicked. "Then how do you explain the pregnancy tests? They all came out positive."

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "You're not human, you imbeciles. Did it not occur to you that your hormonal makeup might be a little different than of a typical human female?"

Bulma nodded in agreement. "Saiyan men _and_ women produce a hormone that's very similar chemically to the hormone that women produce when they're pregnant. If Vegeta took a pregnancy test, it would come out positive too."

Vegeta snorted. "Idiots." With that, they left the two teenagers alone, shutting the door behind them.

Goten sat down on Trunks' bed, completely quiet. Trunks joined the younger demi-Saiyan, also unable to say a word. A few minutes of silence passed before Goten spoke up.

"I'm not pregnant!" A broad grin threatened to split Goten's face in half. "I'm not going to have a baby!"

Trunks nodded, also smiling. "That's what I've been telling you all week, you numbskull."

"Yes!" Goten leapt up from the bed, jumping excitedly for a few seconds. "We should celebrate! Want to go see a movie or something?"

"I think I have a better idea." Then, without further warning, Trunks tackled Goten to the floor of his bedroom, ripped off his pants, and tossed them unceremoniously onto his bed.

The boys then proceeded to spend the next several hours not making a baby. Because that, after all, was what being a teenager was all about.


End file.
